


Divorce

by Xander_The_Undead



Category: IT (2017), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Cancer, Growing Old Together, M/M, Relationship Through the Years, Silly sweet fun
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-25
Updated: 2019-03-25
Packaged: 2019-12-07 17:10:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18237827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xander_The_Undead/pseuds/Xander_The_Undead
Summary: Inside jokes and funny dumb things always happened when two people are in a relationship for a long time. Things that the two always giggle or laugh at while others stand around feeling lost or think it’s dumb.Richie and Eddie had millions of them, but their favorite was divorce.





	Divorce

**Author's Note:**

> This started as a silly head cannon and turned into something that I really just dumped a lot of life experience and feelings into so I APOLOGIZE.
> 
> A HUGE thank you to [Tinyarmedtrex](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tinyarmedtrex) for betaing!

Inside jokes and funny dumb things always happened when two people are in a relationship for a long time. Things that the two always giggle or laugh at while others stand around feeling lost or think it’s dumb.

Richie and Eddie had millions of them, but their favorite was divorce.

It had started out two nights after they had gotten back from their honeymoon. Their apartment was still piled high with boxes marked for various rooms and the only thing they had bothered to unpack was their clothes and Richie’s TV so they could lay on floor in a cocoon of all the blankets they owned to watch TV. They sat on the blankets and pillows, Eddie in nothing but Richie’s large favorite Metallica t-shirt and Richie in nothing at all saying that since his only roommate now was his husband, he earned that right. Richie grinned as his husband (that was fun to say) reached over to pluck Richie’s eggroll off his plate with his expert chopstick skills and winked as he bit into it.

“That’s not proper blow job etiquette.”

Eddie snorted oh so attractively then muttered ‘like you would know’ around his mouth full of vegetables and crispy egg. Richie crowed loudly, sitting up so he could reach over and shoved at Eddie’s shoulder but accidentally pushed too hard. He watched Eddie tip backwards, rolling over and landing on the open containers of soy sauce with his bare butt in the air. He only stopped laughing when he heard Eddie groan and then let out curse. He watched as Eddie stood up and soy sauce leaked down from the shirt onto his legs. Richie’s shirt was officially covered in assorted condiments.

“Ah shit. Your shirt.” Eddie grumbled, reaching for napkins to wipe at his legs and Richie had no idea what possessed him to say it, but it just slipped out.

“That’s it. Divorce.”

Both froze and Richie for a minute thought maybe he had messed up royally as Eddie looked at him with wide shocked eyes before a smile cracked over his husband’s face and Eddie broke out into hysterical laughter. Richie couldn’t help but laugh with him after a while, reaching over to help clean him up by licking soy sauce off Eddie’s thigh.

It started to become a thing after that, yelling ‘divorce!’ when the other did something stupid or ridiculous. When Richie had accidentally washed all of Eddie’s white dress shirts with his red t-shirt or when Eddie had forgotten to throw out the spoiled milk and Richie took a gulp. It happened if Richie didn’t do his share of the chores, if Eddie drank the last of the coffee, or if Richie wouldn’t stop playing his guitar loudly at two in the morning.

When they had moved into their first house, Eddie swore divorce when Richie had picked out the most obnoxious color yellow and painted the living room it, though it became one of his favorite rooms later. When they had adopted their son, Frank, Eddie had accidentally gotten regular formula instead of the gentle anti-gas stuff they needed. Richie yelled divorce at him while they both were awake with a screaming gassy infant. At Frank’s first play Richie had insisted on bringing a high-quality camera to catch their son’s one line on film, the entire time standing in the way of other parents view. Eddie swore divorce the entire way home. Eddie became the most competitive soccer dad anyone had seen and while Richie loved how passionate his Eds was, being kicked out of Frank’s game was just kind of sucky. Richie texted Eddie divorce and that he was taking custody of Frank along with suing for emotional damage.

It was always said in jest and never with any seriousness or venom.

There was only once where it hadn’t been in fun, it was never said but certainly thought.

When Eddie had received the chief of surgery position at the hospital, Richie had been so proud of his husband. They had hired a sitter and gone out to dinner to celebrate, it was fun, and they felt like they had back when they were twenty-two. Sadly, that joy only lasted a few months. Eddie’s job required lots of long hours, having to stay at the hospital and fill out paperwork or watch over the other surgeons to make sure everything ran smoothly. It was stressful and nerve wracking but he loved it.

Richie didn’t.

Being left all by himself with the kids, sometimes for a day or two, had started to wear on Richie. Dinner was for three now instead of four, the kids never got to see their Papa for bed most nights and Jackie their daughter had cried when Eddie tried to take her because she didn’t recognize him after a while and honestly that was the last straw.

“I can’t just quit my job, Richie!”

“I’m not asking you to!” He bit back, thankful that Maggie had taken the kids out for the night so Richie and Eddie could have a night to themselves, which unfortunately had fallen apart the minute Eddie started talking about work. “All I’m saying is that I feel like I don’t have a husband anymore. You’re like some stranger who wanders in here at random hours.”

Richie ignored how hurt Eddie looked at his words and shook his head when Eddie went on the same spiel he always did about how his job was important. He could tell Eddie didn’t appreciate the dismissal, but he was honestly so done with all the excuses.

“I’m just tired of it. It’s so screwed up that your own kids barely know you anymore or that I have to plan things like three weeks in advance to see you. I’m done, Eddie.”

He watched as Eddie’s eyes widened slightly, reaching out to grab onto Richie’s sleeve tightly. “You-You aren’t talking about...?”

And Richie didn’t answer.

They didn’t joke about it for a while after that, it seemed too close to what they had almost gone through to be funny anymore. After that Eddie made an effort, making sure to be done with work so he could be home in time for dinner and if he couldn’t be he made damn sure to make it in time for bedtime stories and kisses. He took actual time off, taking his family to fun places like the aquarium and Disney World and making sure to spend every waking moment with them when he could.

It wasn’t until four years later when they were making a huge batch of cupcakes for Jackie’s school bake sale Eddie had accidentally squeezed a frosting bag too hard. With chocolate frosting all over the island counter, Richie couldn’t help but laugh at Eddie’s look of shock at his mess.

“Oh my god!” He said between fits of laughter. “Divorce!”

He saw Eddie’s look of surprise at his words, the smallest smile forming until it was a large grin and then his husband was there laughing right along with him.

The joke was back and it felt good to have it back, it was being used so much that even their children had started to yell it at them when they were annoyed with their dads or just exasperated. It had almost become one of their ways of saying I love you, letting the other know that even though what they were doing was dumb they were still loved.

Richie gasped at the nip to his neck, hips moving up and trying to get friction against his husband’s. He whined when Eddie refused to let him have it, his husband moving down a little lower to give his chest attention. Eddie had just started a wonderful rhythm of sucking on one of his nipples when Richie felt it. The slight pain in his intestines and then...

“Oh my god!” Eddie pulled back and gave Richie a very disapproving frown. Richie tried to look innocent, but the smile threatening to turn into a laugh ruined it. “Did you _seriously_ just fart while I was doing that?”

“I’m sorry, babe!” Richie tried, his laughter not helping at all. “I had that cheese omelet for breakfast, and you know what dairy does to me!”

“That is it!” Eddie said, trying to sound upset when Richie could hear the laughter in his voice. “Divorce!”

“No! Come back, my love!”

Through the years they kept it going, even while wrinkles started to set in, muscles became a little less firm and hair started to thin. It was even kept in some dire times, Richie reaching out to take Eddie’s thin hand to give it a tight squeeze. He let his eyes roam over Eddie’s frail body and bald head but his husband still had a smile for him even though it was tired. Richie refused to cry in front of Eddie then, he had no right when Eddie was the one going through all of this. Jesus, chemo was a bitch.

“The doctors say your progress is looking really good. Just one more week and then you’ll have the surgery.”

Eddie huffed a soft laugh. “Woo hoo. Can’t wait for that.”

Richie smiled, bringing Eddie’s hand up to his mouth so he could kiss his fingers, the silver band that was far too loose now on Eddie’s ring finger was cold against his lips. “You’re going to make it, okay? Cause if you die before me, I’m bringing you back and divorcing you. You hear me?”

And even though Eddie’s laugh was tired and weak it was filled with happiness.

Surgery was a success, the doctors being able to remove the entire tumor from Eddie’s stomach. He lost the ability to be able to eat a lot of foods due to it but being able to be there for his daughter’s wedding was well worth any kind of meat, oil or sugar he could ever want.

It continued on even through grandkids, Richie loving how Frank’s daughter would constantly crack jokes that made absolutely no sense and Jackie’s son would whine about needing to wash his hands before and after meals. He loved the weekends they would get the kids and they would take them out to eat, to the movies and just all kinds of fun stuff. Spoil them rotten with love so that they would like their grandpas the best.

Richie jumped out of the way when Jackie’s son hurled all over the floor, glad the kid had at least made it off the go karts before spilling his entire stomach out. He heard Eddie sigh loudly as the boy started to cry, glaring at Richie halfheartedly as they tried to console their grandson.

“I told you not to let him eat all that ice cream and then let him go on the track.”

“Eds, sometimes you just gotta live a little.”

When their grandson calmed down a little and started to cling to Eddie’s leg, Eddie shot Richie a look. “We are super divorced now.”

Richie chuckled the whole way home.

It went on and on, never stopping and never fading until Eddie passed from heart failure at age eighty-two, though Richie continued to talk to his husband as if he had never left. And when Richie laid in his hospital bed, monitors hooked up to him that would make him either insane or chuckle with their constant beeps, he had people come visit him. A man who had Eddie’s eyes, but his hair was too dark, sometimes a woman with his mother’s blue eyes, dark brown hair and thick glasses and they would bring in these teenagers that Richie couldn’t recognize much. Though sometimes he would remember they were his sprouts and his sprout’s spuds.

He never forgot Eddie though. Always remembering, telling his nurse Nancy about him, looking at their pictures and smiling or forgetting and calling for Eddie at night.

He eighty-five when his body finally gave in but he hadn’t been scared. He had his family around him, his daughter’s hand in what was left of his curls and his son’s hand in his. It was like falling asleep, his body feeling heavier and heavier until he couldn’t hold on any longer and let his eyes slip closed.

“Wake up, asshole.”

Richie let his eyes flutter open, large smile coming to his face at the sight of Eddie. Young, beautiful, perfectly healthy and with the brightest smile. Eddie reached out a hand to him and Richie took it, their hands no longer frail and wrinkled but smooth and strong as his husband pulled him up to stand next to him.

“You kept me waiting for a couple of years.”

Richie laughed softly and wrapped an arm around his Eds shoulders. “Sorry, you gunna divorce me for it?”

Eddie tapped his chin in thought before shaking his head. “Nah. I think this is it. You’re stuck with me forever now.”

Richie grinned so wide his face hurt. “I don’t think I mind that at all, Eds.”


End file.
